Mapo Mien at a Chinese restaurant ($11.80++)!
Mapo mien — soft tofu cubes in fragrant mapo sauce over noodles with a side of clear soup. $11.80++.
Sit-down lunch — went for the mapo mien at a Chinese restaurant. $11.80++. The mapo tofu + noodle hybrid. 😋
What was on the table ($11.80++):
- A large white plate of thin noodles topped with a generous serving of mapo tofu — soft white tofu cubes swimming in a fragrant dark red mapo sauce with bits of minced pork, fermented broad bean (doubanjiang), garlic and chilli oil.
- Topped with chopped scallion greens for the aromatic finish.
- A side bowl of clear chicken broth with bits of egg white — the classic clean-palate chaser for spicy Sichuan dishes.
Mapo mien is the noodle-format of the iconic mapo tofu — the soft tofu cubes and the mala-spicy sauce work over noodles even better than over rice (the noodles absorb the sauce, every strand carries flavour). The Sichuan peppercorn numbing tingle came through cleanly.
Restaurant-style mapo done well has three layers of heat: the dried chilli front-end burn, the doubanjiang fermented depth, and the Sichuan peppercorn numbing back-end. All three were present here.
Stirred everything together so the noodles coated themselves in sauce. Mix in the side soup between bites for the temperature reset.
Total: $11.80++ for the plate + soup.
Overall: 4.3 / 5. Mapo sauce had proper depth, tofu cubes were silky-soft (not over-firm). Will reorder. 😍👍🏼
